Flooding!

As newcomers to the city, we were unaware that the street we chose to live on, Juan B. Justo, is one of the worst flood areas of the city. Our street literally sits above an underground stream. In the 1930s, the government enclosed the stream in a pipe and built a major road above it. When it rains too much, the pipes are unable to contain all of the water, and the street floods.

Last Friday, 19 de Febrero de 2010 it rained 80mm (3.15 inches) in 2 hours! And the average historical rainfall for the whole month of Febrero is only 107mm (4.2 inches). Jill was at a store when the flooding began, but they kicked all of their customers out in order to erect a metal blockade in the doorway to prevent flood damage. Meanwhile, I was on my way home in the subway and was amazed to hear water toppling down onto the train as we sped along. Since it's still summer here and the subways aren't airconditioned, it's often unbelievably hot and stuffy, and everyone wants to keep the windows down. But on Friday, water came pouring in the windows, so people were both wet and sweaty on their unpleasant ride home. We had to skip a stop, Scalabrini Ortiz, because the station was flooded, but I was really surprised that the subway stopped at the Palermo stop because two massive waterfalls of rainwater were cascading into the station through the vents in the ceiling. I was really thankful I could get home via subway, because the streets near our apartment were closed and it would have been difficult to figure out the buses since they were rerouting themselves.

The flooding was really bad near an intersection about a block away from our apartment. Firefighters tied ropes between traffic lights and used inflatable boats to help pedestrians to cross the street. Officials cut the power in some areas to try to prevent electrocutions, and we lost power for a couple of hours. And since we didn't really want to venture out into the water, we lit a candle, cracked a bottle of wine, ate some cheese and crackers, and talked about life. The floods subsided within a few hours, but they left behind a slimy-dirt coating littered with trash and shoes that people had lost.

In the past when other streets of our barrio have flooded, and we gladly took advantage of the opportunity to be silly and jump in giant puddles! But since the floods have been so much closer to our door, the novelty has worn off a bit... Check the video and photos below to see it for yourself (if you're having trouble viewing the video, try a different internet browser)!